*Apple has agreed to a $95 million settlement following allegations that its Siri feature recorded users without their consent.
Pending court approval on February 14, eligible Apple device owners could receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device owned between September 17, 2014, and December 31, 2024, for a maximum of five devices. According to a lawsuit filed in August 2019, the Siri recordings were shared with outside contractors to improve the feature. Apple denies any wrongdoing but said it will address privacy concerns, including deleting pre-October 2019 audio recordings and publishing transparency guidelines on Siri’s data collection. Eligible claimants will receive a notice to file a claim via email once the settlement is approved.
“Apple knows that unauthorized recordings are common and as such tasks its human reviewers with, among other things, identifying whether Siri was deliberately activated or not,” the lawsuit says.
The legal filing points to Apple’s iOS Terms of Service which previously stated: “By using Siri, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri and other Apple products and services.”
The company’s current Siri, Dictation & Privacy agreement says: “When you use Siri, your device will indicate in Siri Settings if the things you say are processed on your device and not sent to Apple servers. Otherwise, your audio is sent to and processed on Apple servers.”
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Apple previously released a statement addressing plans to improve Siri’s privacy settings.
“We know that customers have been concerned by recent reports of people listening to audio Siri recordings as part of our Siri quality evaluation process — which we call grading. We heard their concerns, immediately suspended human grading of Siri requests and began a thorough review of our practices and policies,” the company said. Apple noted that it “will no longer retain audio recordings of Siri interactions.”
Regarding claims that Apple sold Siri data in 2019, the company said, “When we store Siri data on our servers, we don’t use it to build a marketing profile and we never sell it to anyone. We use Siri data only to improve Siri, and we are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private.”
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